MUSCLE CHURCH: Our Father, the Iron

An old pic of the guy I used to be! There's the old saying, 'the more things change, the more things stay the same.' Sometimes I think it's true because we don't venture too far from our roots, and when we do, we come back when things go haywire. Maybe not even haywire, just when things get to be sightly off-center we revert to what is learned because there's comfort there and something proven. That familiarity allows us to settle down, regroup and still feel like progress is being made. If you follow my post you know that I'm in a weird sort of limbo right now, and it looks like my career as a strongman is on hold for a wee bit. However, that doesn't mean I can just give up training, and in fact I need to get in even better shape to help me take care of the situation I have now. So I found myself thinking, 'what kind of training should I be doing?' The answer came to me quickly, and it was Jeet Kune Do. Now to be fair, I don't have a

So since around April of this year I have been training hard for some contests this year. I had the Minuteman Muscle Challenge in West Virginia in July, South Carolina's Strongest Man in September and in the preliminary stages of planning to toss my hat in the ring at the Lee Haney Classic in Atlanta in October. And then... Well I don't care for going to the doctor, like most guys. Doctors usually suck, they don't care for patients that know their bodies well and few understand the stress that training and competing take on the body. I trust my chiropractor and that's about it. So I visited him and he gave me the usual 'yeah you're falling apart but I can try to help you' and then I asked about this odd protrusion in my belly...well, long story short I spoke with him and then saw the doctor affiliated with him and they were of the opinion that I probably had a hernia and needed to pump the brakes on everything. Needless to say I was concerned and then refe

Big Loz just practicing for carrying the groceries in! Oh look at you! Big strong man! Strongest man in Europe? Oh you mean The Mountain??? WRONG! Ha ha! Europe's Strongest Man came and went and while Eddie Hall's amazing world record deadlift stole the show, the real winner of the weekend was Laurence Shahlaei who came in spectacular fashion to win the contest and set a new record in the Car Carry. Laurence, or Big Loz, as he's known, is a hell of an athlete with quite a story. Just a few years ago he was sidelined with a host of injuries that took him out of the World's Strongest Man. He was seen famously laying on the doctor's table with ice packs on both torn biceps saying, "I think it's over for real now." Only to come back from that and tear his quad, in the process losing lots of size and sponsorships. Loz maintains a crazy positive attitude and through all of it he kept posting encouraging messages on social media and cheering on othe

So I’m on the final lap of contest prep and I’m feeling the strain. In my head I can hear Colin Bryce yelling “take the strain” as he is so famous for doing at World’s Strongest Man. If he was here I could assure him that the strain has been taken, and soon it will be over for a time and I cannot wait. For all intents and purposes, the hard work is done now. With two weeks before contest time, trying to move the needle any further along will probably be counter-productive or cause injury. So there’s a part of me that gets to hit the brakes a bit and look back on the last 12 or so weeks of training and seeing how far I’ve come. I could train all I want in the next two weeks but I’m not going to make myself more ready for this contest. Sure I’m going to have some good workouts and maybe up the cardio a bit, but the time for progression has passed and now it’s time to reap the rewards of my labors. Oh have there been some labors. I present to you the face of fatigue and prog